January 27, 2012 | by David Snider    0 comments

I know that as I reflect on important moments in my life when I truly learned something, most of them didn’t happen sitting silently at a desk. Most of them were experiences, conversations, dialogues with other people that taught me something I didn’t know and stirred something inside me I didn’t know I had. And in this age of Facebook, Twitter and . . .

I know that as I reflect on important moments in my life when I truly learned something, most of them didn’t happen sitting silently at a desk. Most of them were experiences, conversations, dialogues with other people that taught me something I didn’t know and stirred something inside me I didn’t know I had. And in this age of Facebook, Twitter and texting there’s an even greater need for the kind of understanding that comes from being in a room face to face, explaining with our whole selves what we mean, and learning about the world from direct experience and dialogue with our fellow human beings.

Theater matters — especially for young people. Because as much as we need to eat, sleep and clothe ourselves to be human, we need to express ourselves. We need to be able to share with our neighbors and the rest of the world what’s bothering us, how others can help us and what we fear or dream of for our future. And beyond basic reading, writing and arithmetic, students need to be able to think for themselves. They need to be able to imagine, envision, and explain. They need to understand – not just know, but to understand what they’re learning and why. They need to be able to stand up, put their ideas forward and defend them. And they need to be able to inspire and be inspired.

At Young Playwrights’ Theater (YPT), we know the power of bringing theater into the classroom. Truancy rates drop when we’re in the classroom. Homework completion soars. We see with our assessments that students’ critical and creative thinking improve dramatically during the program. And teachers, students and parents tell us how much the experience has meant to them. Because for many of our students, it’s the first time someone has asked them what they think. It’s their first time to really engage in class. It’s their first time to tell their stories. And it’s their first time to realize their own true potential — a revelation of who they are, and who they could be. I think theater has had that effect on many of us.

Recently we had an opportunity to bring together students from Suchitoto, El Salvador and Washington, DC, to collaborate and create some new work together, as part of a collaboration with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and the Canadian Mission to the OAS. The students from El Salvador spoke little to no English; several of our students from DC spoke no Spanish. And yet, within the first hour of working together, these students were communicating –- laughing, playing and understanding each other through the act of creating theatre together. By the end of a three-hour workshop, they had created a joyful performance together — and they were friends. Because beneath the surface of their differences, they discovered how very much they had in common. Seeing their performance brought tears to the eyes of those in the audience that day and, I think, drove home the point that theatre creates a bridge in our human experience — and helps us understand that, deep down, there’s more that binds us together than separates us. That’s a comforting and empowering thought — and that if we could all just play together a bit each day, the world could be a better place for all of us.

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